


Forgive My Sins

by marvel_and_mischief



Category: Ex Machina (2015), Oscar Isaac - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Breaking Sobriety, Gen, Heavy Petting, Smut, Sobriety, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29002626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvel_and_mischief/pseuds/marvel_and_mischief
Summary: Nathan breaks a promise that he made to you.
Relationships: Nathan Bateman/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Forgive My Sins

It wasn’t unusual for the compound to be peacefully quiet. If Nathan was working he would lock himself in the lab or his old bedroom and you would go about your business usually in the living area at the front of the building or in the large kitchen at the back of the building. 

So when you step out of the shower and get dressed and see no sign of your boyfriend, you’ve no reason to worry. It would be one of those days where if you were lucky you might see him at dinner later or if not you’ll be woken up when he slips into bed at an ungodly hour in the morning. 

It’s something you got used to when you were working for him, before you entered into a relationship, and it’s something that won’t change any time soon. You don’t mind, you never felt as though you were being pushed to the side or forgotten about. It was normal, and you made it work. You both did.

What _was_ unusual was spotting Nathan in neither of the places you expect him to be. Sitting on the bench in the room off the side of the house that overlooks the river that passes by, lights off so the trees surrounding the box room kept the light out and created ominous shadows over Nathan’s form. His head was down, resting on his hands as his elbows dug into his knees. 

You’d seen many of Nathan’s darker emotions, angry verbal outbursts (never at you), frustrated smashing of objects onto the wooden patio outside but you’d never seen despair, which is what this looks like. You had never seen him cry like you thought he was doing now, but his face was hidden so you might be wrong. He had spoken to you about dark thoughts twice before, once when he was drunk (before you helped him get sober) where he professed his fear of loneliness, to which you patiently reminded him that as long as you were with him he would never be lonely again. And a second time a few months back when he had confessed to being scared of pushing you away for good. You didn’t quite understand where that had come from, he had never done anything to make you even _think_ about calling it quits. Nathan isn’t a _soft_ boyfriend, you wouldn’t even say he was _loving_ though you know he loves you. But you don’t need someone to coddle you or tell you they love you every five minutes, that’s what makes him perfect for you. 

The soft red slippers on your feet allow you to silently pad towards the room without detection to observe Nathan more clearly. He’s in his sleep shorts and a long sleeved cotton t-shirt you’ve seen him wear a thousand times before. It’s slightly baggy on him which you like because it smooths his sharp edges, makes him look more boy-next-door. 

When he doesn’t notice you watching him, you carefully take hold of the rectangular door handle and proceed to slide the clear glass across. The sound makes a quiet whoosh that signals that someone is entering the room, yet Nathan doesn’t look up. Now you’re concerned. Nathan’s observant to the point of obsessive. He should have heard you outside the room but now with the door open, you expect him to at least acknowledge you. 

You remain patient, if he’s playing a game you would play along, if he’s truly upset over something you’ll get to the bottom of it in no time. 

You ever so slowly move around the perimeter of the room until you’re directly in front of Nathan, about four feet away from him, leaning back against the glass wall that shows white clouds hiding the sun behind them. You won’t be surprised if it rains soon. You had wanted to go for a hike up the trail later, with or without Nathan, but you suppose that wasn’t going to happen now. 

Nathan was a statue, still like a paused frame of a character in a movie, unmoving like all inanimate objects are. You had joked early on in your relationship that he wasn’t a man, he didn’t think like one or act like one, he was more like one of his AI’s he had later destroyed after the _incident_. But now you worry you were right after all. He’s acting as though malfunctioned, broken in some way. 

You make a move finally, after studying him and coming to the conclusion that he isn’t going to respond to you, coming to kneel in front of him, almost underneath him as you try to take a peak in the gaps between his fingers. 

Nathan told you once that he had been friendless in college, it didn’t surprise you but it did sadden you that this bright, brilliant, beautiful man was once a lonely, misunderstood boy, and that the first time someone had touched him unprompted it had made him so surprised, so wary of the other person, that he had instinctively shoved them off their seat to which no one would go near him for the rest of his years as a student. 

This reminds you of that memory, you don’t think Nathan would actually shove you away but you’re a little nervous to touch him and scare him into doing something out of pure instinct. 

“I’ve let you down,” Nathan’s voice comes through his fingers croaky and slow. Something’s wrong but you can’t put your finger on it. Has he been crying, is that why his voice sounds so strange? 

“Why do you say that?” You ask kindly, patiently as you slowly pry his fingers away from his face. He fights you though, tensing his fingers, pushing them into his face harder to prevent you from getting a good grip on them. Instead of forcing him you curl your fingers around his wrists and hold them there, letting your presence be felt, letting him know you’re there for him.

“I’ve… done something, fuck, you’re going to be so fucking disappointed,” Nathan mumbles, which he never does, he’s always clear with his words, he likes to be heard. 

You rack your brain to try to work out what failure is to Nathan Bateman. He had been working on a new AI system, a safer one, one without conscious, independent thought that had taken up his time for months. Not succeeding on something he had poured his heart into would be failure. But that wouldn’t disappoint you. You’d be sad for Nathan, but disappointment wouldn’t come into play. So it has to be something else.

“Have you cheated on me?” It wasn’t a serious question, Nathan’s a lot of things but you were absolutely certain if he wasn’t happy with your relationship he would be open and honest about it, he’d break your heart and break up your relationship before he became a cheater. 

You almost laugh when Nathan’s head shoots up, shock paints his features, clearly offended that you think he’d do that to you. But when you see the redness around his eyes and the slightly glazed look in them, the inability to focus on you precisely, your heart cracks at the sight of him. His piercing gaze that used to make you wither before him, shy and uncomfortable, that later sent hot shocks of desire through your body when you eventually got together, was now reduced to a weak, vacant stare. 

You try to disguise your emotions with a quick wink to show that you’re joking. Nathan lets out a sigh of relief, looks away from you, back to the ground that’s holding his attention more than you are. He’s still tense but he keeps his hands away from his face and interlocks them together in the middle of the two of you. 

You have your fears, you think you know what’s going on but you don’t think he’s going to admit it to you, too prideful in the presence of the person he made so many promises to. Those promises that he’s broken for whatever reason. So you have to get confirmation another way.

You place your hands on either side of his face, your thumbs grazing the apple of his cheeks, your palms covering his rough beard that you love so much, and tilt his head up. He knows what you’re going to do, you can see the pain in his eyes, begging you not to break the facade that there’s nothing to search for, nothing to confirm. 

You lean forward slowly, giving him enough time to break away or get up and leave the room. There’s a tiny part of you that wishes he would, so you can forget this even happened and go about your day, take that hike in the rain to clear your head. But he doesn’t do anything, he just waits.

You slot your mouths together and without prompting Nathan opens his mouth for you to taste inside. You linger longer than you need to, long after the sharp tang of alcohol reaches your tongue, long after you slip your tongue out of his mouth and continue to deliver a slow, lazy kiss that you hope reminds Nathan of how much you love him, adore him, appreciate him for opening himself up to you, for bearing his troubles to you and being so emotionally naked in this moment. 

You pull away, swallowing passed the dryness in your throat as you come to terms with his secret. 

It has been nearly two years since Nathan had promised to give up the bottle for you, for your relationship. He was drinking himself into an early grave, and you weren’t going to stick around just to bury him. You had felt cruel at the time, telling him it was you or the drink, but there had been one too many nights when you had had to drag his passed out body onto a soft surface and stay up with him to make sure he didn’t choke on his own sick. You were at the end of your usually very patient tether so you had given him the ultimatum he needed to hear. If he didn’t want to die lonely, he needed to put you above the drink. 

“Where is it?” You ask, subtly looking around the room to see if the bottle is nearby.

“In the trash.” Your heart skips a beat at the thought of an entire bottle of alcohol in his two years sober body. You see his eyes, the slight shake in his hands and it suddenly makes sense why he looks so terrible. At your look of terror Nathan takes a deep breath and places a hand on your upper arm when he speaks, his voice clearer now he was using it. “It was a five hundred mil bottle.”

You don’t let your sigh of relief be heard. You can work with that amount, he shouldn’t be too bad with some glasses of water in him and a long rest. Five hundred mil is a hell of a lot less than what he used to drink daily. 

You look at him, really look at him, you see his clenched jaw and the worry lines on his forehead, his lips downcast in sadness, disappointment. You leave a hand on his cheek, gently stroking at the soft skin just above where his beard starts. 

Nathan frowns at you, shaking his head slightly at your comforting actions. You raise an eyebrow, questioning what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling other than the obvious. 

“Why aren’t you angry?” Nathan finally asks, pushing your hand away from his face as though he doesn’t deserve your touch that encapsulates everything he thinks he doesn’t deserve; your empathy, your understanding, your kindness, your patience.

You ignore his action and instead place the same hand on top of his knee, resuming your action of stroking your thumb along the slightly cracked skin.

“It’s easily forgivable,” you speak your words carefully, concisely, like you would if you were giving an instruction. There’s a tone to your voice that says _don’t argue with me_ and also _trust me_.

“You’re wrong,” Nathan insists in the tone that used to be patronising (you had to tell him to _tone it down_ or you weren’t going to have debates with him until he spoke _to_ you instead of _at_ you).

“I’m not.” You are stubborn, that’s what initially attracted Nathan to you. You never back down from an argument (unless he spoke down to you) and you always fight your corner with an unrelenting feistiness that, Nathan wasn’t shy to admit, sometimes made him hard. If he hadn’t slipped up so spectacularly today maybe this would have been one of those moments. 

“You are.”

“Nathan,” you give him a pointed look that makes him stay silent, “it is my job as your partner to be understanding, to not overreact when you’ve slipped up but to hold your hand through it so you can come out the other side.” 

You keep your gaze fixed on his, urging him to listen to you. This isn’t about being right or wrong, this is about what you’re going to do moving forward to make sure this never happens again. 

And Nathan finally understands that when he sees your look of determination, your lack of actions up to this point, not shouting at him or hitting him like he expected, not telling him off or making him feel like the fucking loser he thinks he is for losing the battle he fought so hard to win. 

He reaches down and places his hands on either side of your neck, thumbs on your pulse points underneath your ears and holds you there as he takes you in. 

Nathan hates the lump in his throat, the wetness in his eyes, the tremble in his hands that he’s sure you can feel against your soft skin. 

A sob creeps up on him unexpectedly and out of instinct you rise to your knees, push your way between his legs and pull his head into your chest. It’s an awkward angle, he’s a bit too high up on the bench and your knees are starting to hurt but your comfort is unimportant compared to Nathan’s in this moment. 

He’s silent in his sobbing, you wouldn’t know he was crying if it weren’t for your shirt getting wet and his little sniffs now and then. You stay there like that for a while, humming softly with your head resting against his shaved head, rocking him ever so slightly side to side with your arms tight around his shoulders. 

You’re startled out of your calm state when Nathan pulls away and surges up to kiss you, passionately, heated, lips tangling, teeth clattering together until you find a rhythm that’s pleasurable for you both. He pulls you up and onto his lap, your legs straddling him in such a way that you are seated perfectly against his groin. 

Nathan’s hands move up under the back of your t-shirt to pull you flush against his chest, his nails scratching lightly against your skin and making you moan into his mouth.

You grind down against his cock then, momentarily forgetting what had happened, not even tasting the alcohol on his tongue anymore, your brain melting into a puddle of _Nathan Nathan Nathan_ and _more more more_. 

It’s not until Nathan abruptly pushes you away, far enough that you have to grip onto his shoulders to prevent yourself from falling off his lap, that you realise something has happened. Or rather _hasn’t_ happened.

Nathan lets out a frustrated growl that turns into a sorry cry of embarrassment. You look down to see he’s still soft. He’s so inebriated that he can’t get aroused. 

You scoot forward on his lap to get closer and when he grabs your waist to push you away again you fight his strength to wrap your arms around his shoulders. He gives up eventually, once you have him nestled against your softness, his head hooked into the crook of your neck as you whisper sweets nothings into his ear, keeping him grounded to you and nothing else. 

It isn’t the end of the world, and it definitely isn’t the end of yours and Nathan’s relationship. There will be so many more of these bad days to come but you believe in him and he believes in you. You’re an odd couple but you make it work, and you will continue to make it work, together.


End file.
